Page 5 of Hound

Music was one with Le Maudit, eerie chords pulsating from the walls, sealing empty crevices. No tampering had been made to the volume, yet the usurped melody diminished in my ears. I halted on the last few steps, concealed by thickset balusters. Within the angle I stood, I possessed ample sight of the fourth level’s right side, where the man hid in the shadows across from me.

Standing, his towering height swallowed his surroundings. As he leaned against the end wall, his build underneath the leather trench coat doubled in size, squared shoulders enhancing the definition of his bulky arms underneath the sleeves. Narrowed eyes focused on the door left of him, bronze irises gleaming along deep, copper flesh.

He was impassive and rugged at a standstill. However, that shifted the moment Sylvester staggered out of the lavatory.

The man seized Sylvester in a wink, the ends of his trench coat flaring in the air as a veined hand hauled him by the neck into an empty den. His steps trembled against the carpeted floors beneath him. My feet followed without command, entering the joining room parallel to the den where French doors hid my figure.

Sylvester’s muddled presence faintly heightened in the fraught air. It was a string, calling to be pulled at. Urgency to step in rushed through my veins, to assist who Anabella and I came for, yet I remained plastered, awe-stricken.

The man shoved him against a wall, his tilted face giving away his hardened features that slowly contoured into that of a beast underneath the dark. Confusion knotted in my chest at the familiar sight. Mother would recount stories during the latenight of vampires in the olden days who possessed such ability, one that churned fear, yet there was no trace of such within me.

However, this appearance was far from her words. It was a vision that lured with its feral form—an allurement that beckoned my existence.

White, patchy strands swept Sylvester’s jaw as sunken, silver eyes leveled. Recognition flickered in his gaze. Gone was the murkiness that swam in intoxication; assumed was a flare that altered his complete demeanor with refined awareness.

“Hound.” Sylvester’s voice was firm, assertive. For a man who was meek and disdained for it in our society, there was no trace of it. “You were overdue.”

“Mallory, either you pay me too much mind,” a hint of jest coated the man’s voice, “or you don’t care about your life very much.”

His hands pocketed themselves into his thick fur jacket as the man’s grip tightened around his throat, constricting his airways as he wheezed, “I pay you minddueto caring for my life.”

“Your death sentence says otherwise.”

“Purely existing warrants death.”

The man snickered, the humor gone. “Existing grants you leeway, the information you possess guarantees you a spot six feet under.”

Sylvester’s eyebrow arched. “I didn’t think a hound sustained such hostility, especially to a man deemed mad by his own society overnight.”

“And you think that’ll stop you from talking?”

“You believe you will?”

“Wouldn’t you prefer being silenced and alive instead of silent and dead?” The man took a step forward and closed what little gap remained between the two. “Tell me, Mallory, before I rip you toshreds.”

His words curled into a snarl and reverberated in the space, muffling the drumming dark melody.

“Threats pummel my every move. One more won’t alter my ultimate goal.” A sneer sliced across Sylvester’s face, fangs glinting underneath the low lighting as they stretched to their full capacity. They hollowed his bottom lip and emphasized the missing canines next to them. “The Forgotten Wave will rise. There’s no stopping it. Not even me.”

The man’s shoulders expanded while his neck rolled. A resounding growl escaped his lips as he lifted Sylvester off the ground, back pounding past wood. Crackling bones interlaced with the music that seemed to vanish beyond my ears. Murder coated the air. Though I never witnessed such a thing in action, I recognized its tight bind around my flesh. The swallowing force that kept me immobile. The very shadow married to my presence.

Sylvester kneed the man’s chest and chin. His body gave no response, yet his fingers betrayed him as they loosened around Sylvester’s throat. The man waited a second too long. The advantage was no longer his. Sylvester swiped it.

Sloppy but calculative, Sylvester threw his punches, the weight of them thrusting the man’s bulking figure deeper into the room. Within the cloak of night, darkness wrapped around the man, eyes burning with a fire that blazed the room.

Sylvester retreated, each step slower than the last until he reached the den’s entrance. Defeat lined his muscles as a pocketed hand lifted and pressed against a small machine hidden between his index and thumb. The man shrieked as he tumbled to the ground, his form withering until it became one with the carpet. The device tumbled onto the carpet as Sylvester sprinted to the staircase and vanished.

Anabella is expecting you. You must return.

Yet my feet gravitated toward the man, everything around me ceasing to exist once I stood before him.

At my feet, he curved into himself, his trembling fingers extending to the device. Instinct told me to let it be, but something else nibbled. A force led my hand to retrieve it before he could.

Heated flesh wrapped around my left wrist with the restraint of a chain as my right hand tucked away the device.

The pit in my stomach returned tenfold, further interwoven with the craving, as the man lifted his head. Burning bronze eyes stole what little breath I held, but viper-like slits held my gaze.

“You,” he exhaled, his gruff voice sharpened by pain, “you’re the?—”

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